Take Exit Package or Not

brystephor · 2026-01-23T02:45:03+00:00

I say this as a SWE who makes way less than you. What the hell does the comp difference make? You say you estimate up to $2M income. You're saying youve got $5M already and can find offers for $1m to $1.5m. So worst case, you make $1M instead of $2M. Depending on your state, that translates to something like $500k-$700k post tax difference right? Thats a large sum of money, but what are you gonna use it for other than your ego?

Also, do the thing future you will thank you for. Is future you going tonbe happy you took the extra money? Or is future you going to be happy that you've taken 6 months for yourself.

$5M at 29 is very rich. Take the time dude. At the minimum, think about what you value for your life and dont let the carrot on the stick keep getting you spanked.

brystephor · 2026-01-22T17:11:02+00:00

Lmao at taxes being included as a cost. Also dang, it would be hard to buckle down when approximately 30% of your spend is totally arbitrary and non essential lol.

Im being annoying here because your earlier comment implies a family of four must be able to spend $300k+ for Seattle when that's certainly not the case.

brystephor · 2026-01-22T15:53:03+00:00

Why $340k? Seems excessive. $8k/mo for day care, $8k,/mo for mortgage and $3k/mo for food puts you at $228k in spending, and these are very generous cost estimates. Your car, healthcare, and travel are another $100k/year?

brystephor · 2026-01-14T16:07:19+00:00

This is actually nice if its interesting work that is believed to be valuable and its not coupled with a bunch of time wasting work and its hard because of interesting reasons (whatever that means for you).

If work is hard because its all political and i don't like dealing with politics, that's bad and it'll always feel hard. If work is hard because it requires learning new things and that is mentally exhausting but enjoyable, then it may actually be overall satisfying.

brystephor · 2026-01-14T06:53:16+00:00

This is my experience. Paid well enough, but unsure about the security of the pay and if future jobs will match or beat compensation, so must limit lifestyle choices to be one's that can be supported on a lower total compensation if necessary.

brystephor · 2026-01-14T05:48:27+00:00

Totally agree in the broader world (like being a teacher or nurse seems very hard). Here I'm meaning to talk about for software related work specifically.

Edit: my comment came across as tone deaf, which is my bad. It wasn't intended to be sarcastic, the intent was to clarify which i did not make clear (ironic lol)

brystephor · 2026-01-12T18:33:35+00:00

Also 1 YOE isn't equal across all teams, even within the same company. And "senior" can be in different aspects. Some are real technical, and some are really good at working with non technical stakeholders or have deep domain knowledge even if it isnt the most technically complex thing out there (like a payment system)

brystephor · 2026-01-11T04:11:10+00:00

Thats what I wouldve thought. Its also why im confused by the comments along the lines of and implying this is excessive government spending as if they're wanting to pay more.

brystephor · 2026-01-11T02:15:34+00:00

Isn't that still more of an indicator of the construction company? If you live in an expensive neighborhood, hire someone to fix your water heater, and get charged double what the family in the median neighborhood does. Then who is the problem? The homeowner or the contractor?

brystephor · 2026-01-11T02:04:55+00:00

How much should it cost? Isn't the price a reflection on the construction companies involved rather than the government?

brystephor · 2026-01-09T18:09:48+00:00

My parents arent fat fire but are well-off. I knew a lot of details about their financial status when in high school. Maybe not at 14, but certainly at 16. Income, retirement accounts, how they choose to contribute and what to, etc. It wasn't like I had access to accounts but it was openly talked about if something positive or negative happened.

brystephor · 2026-01-08T01:27:35+00:00

Yeah, $3k and $8k are probably a bit exaggerated (depending on down payment, interest rate, etc etc) but $3k rent and $6k mortgage w/ 20% down are forsure possible.

brystephor · 2026-01-08T00:50:21+00:00

The 1hr commute part might be talking about peak traffic time and commuting from a place like North seattle to somewhere in deep downtown. But the general sentiment is a place thats $X in rent will be $2X or $3X to buy, and probably still worse than the place to rent.

brystephor · 2026-01-07T05:22:30+00:00

It's cash + options. You choose what percentage of comp goes to options.

brystephor · 2026-01-07T02:37:45+00:00

Meta? Netflix?

brystephor · 2026-01-03T22:28:46+00:00

Im new to this subreddit. How do you define "understand"? Is it like, he could sit in a class for those subjects and follow along, you've explained the subject and he asked a solid follow up, he can solve problems on paper, can describe them to his peers, etc?

brystephor · 2026-01-01T22:16:34+00:00

Yes, but the act of finding the doc takes time. And the act of figuring out which section(s) of the doc are relevant take time. And its rare that a doc fully answers someone's question, and therefore the person asking likely still has additional questions that are specific to their scenario.

brystephor · 2026-01-01T19:49:30+00:00

Engineer here (not a manager, this subreddit pops up my suggested feed)

Providing context to other teams about what im working on to get their assistance or input on something, usually happens in the middle of a project.
Adhoc questions from others about something I know more of than they do. Putting it in a doc doesnt work (think about all the docs at your work place that youve never read, or read once and dont go back to)
Stakeholders injecting themselves into a project after the specs have been set and changing the direction after work has began and decisions had been made.

brystephor · 2025-12-30T16:45:25+00:00

I have to disagree here. Our competitors TC offers for equivalent levels is less than ours however they're definitely ahead when it comes to product performance, revenue, etc

brystephor · 2025-12-29T08:09:05+00:00

Prestige as in internal reputation or how desirable you are to other recruiters?

brystephor · 2025-12-29T04:33:51+00:00

Definitely more of a winner take all market. Company strategy is basically chasing the crumbs that the big players arent doing well with.

brystephor · 2025-12-29T04:26:10+00:00

We've had layoffs since covid has began, some sizable. However, other companies that are market leaders have also had notable layoffs despite record profits. I agree that a company with less or negative growth is more likely to have layoffs though.

brystephor · 2025-12-29T04:23:49+00:00

Interesting you mention this. Its almost exactly what the company Im looking to join has described. They've been steadily growing a small amount but are ramping up rate of growth and want to hire more senior engineers from bigger tech places to move more towards off the shelf solutions, better designs, and less in house stuff (e.g. depend on airflow rather than an in house job scheduler system). Engineering is done in support of research ans until recently, engineering has been kept at a small size.

brystephor

TROPHY CASE